Researchers disagree on Bigfoot reports

PORT ANGELES -- Two researchers looking into reports of curious tracks on the Lower Hoh Indian Reservation have come to different conclusions about whether they might have been caused by Bigfoot.

Dr. Jeffrey Meldrum, assistant professor of anatomy and biology at Idaho State University, concluded there was not enough factual evidence to continue an investigation. The other, self-proclaimed Bigfoot tracker Cliff Crook, believes the evidence is so great he is headed back to gather more data.

Crook, who was on the scene a day before Meldrum, said he found many clues leading him to believe the tracks were created by a Bigfoot, a large, hairy creature also known as Sasquatch that has been reported around the world but is most closely identified with the Pacific Northwest.

"I went expecting to find bear tracks, but on June 30 my initial investigation led me to believe this was not a bear or a human prankster. This was for sure a Bigfoot," Crook told the Peninsula Daily News.

On June 30, he added one more track from the Lower Hoh Reservation, along the Pacific Coast in northwest Washington state.

"This year, we already have had 19 reports from the Pacific Northwest alone. Of those we have thoroughly investigated nine of them and learned a lot," Crook said.

He estimates the animal on the Hoh Indian Reservation is about 8-foot tall with feet 17 inches long and 7 inches wide. Based on the imprint left in the ground, he estimates its weight to be about 600 pounds.

Crook, 59, is a co-editor of the journal Bigfoot Trails. He's a Bigfoot tracker, a Sasquatch detective, an assembler of some 400 plaster footprints. He and his wife, Carol, teamed as technical advisers for the Bigfoot film, "Harry and the Hendersons."

Meldrum, who has studied the Bigfoot phenomenon for four years, sent a researcher to investigate the area where Gene Sampson and Steven Penn first reported seeing tracks .

Meldrum's crew did a thorough search of the land, looking for any physical signs of Bigfoot such as hair and footprints.

"Our general take was that there was something going on on their properties, but it was not attributable to research of Bigfoot we have seen in the past," Meldrum said.

Crook is setting up a base camp outside of the Hoh reservation in hopes of gathering more information.

"I have been in this for 44 years, longer than anyone else, and I think that this is one of the most interesting discoveries. It involves hundreds of footprints and trails," Crook said.